The Bottom Of The Barrel

[swordznsorcery]

fandom_stocking fic for liadt.

Fandom: Return To Treasure Island (1985)
Characters: Jim, Abed, Ben
Gen, 2700 words




The Bottom Of The Barrel

It was in the last days of the summer of 17—, and Abed and I, having spent a long, hot day running over the accounts of the Admiral Benbow, had set upon the idea of refreshment. It being so warm, and the Admiral being a place most unfortunately stuffy upon such a day, we decided to close the place up, and head along the old coast road, with a mind to take a swim. A bottle or two of beer apiece would taste all the better for the cooling, or so we reasoned, and thus it was that, upon that slow and stifling afternoon, we headed out together, leaving old Ben Gunn asleep beneath the counter. He had already drunk more than a bottle or two, and had nodded off with a mouth full of fine Cheshire cheese. There was no rousing him, and he had precious little use for swimming anyway, having a sailor's terror for such things. He looked content enough, and was snoring well when we left him – no mean feat, you'll agree, with a mouth stuffed fit to bursting with cheese.

Happy upon our joint venture, Abed and I were in merry spirits as we walked, and it was not long before Abed burst into song, some infectious spiritual affair, which I soon picked up upon myself. So it was that we made a boisterous, noisy pair, striding with new vigour along the road. It was the noise that was perhaps our undoing, for neither one of us heard the footfalls that must have pursued us – and by the time we were alerted, it was all but too late. A crunch of loose rock beneath a booted foot – a shout somewhat of triumph – and a heavy, dusty sack was thrown over my head, and I felt myself borne to the ground.

I fought like a man possessed, struggling against a far greater weight than my own. Beside me I knew that Abed was doing likewise, although I could of course see nothing, and hear only a little more. Abed always fought like a tiger, but it was clear that we had been surprised by far superior forces, and soon enough my endeavours were cut short by a mighty blow to the head. The thick sack dulled the pain somewhat, but even so I was quite flattened, and left half in a stupor. There was the sensation of being lifted; of being swung roughly over a giant of a shoulder; and then naught but a bumping, disorientating sensation as I was carried away.

I have no idea for how long I was carried, although I suppose it could not have been much more than half an hour or so. When at last I was thrown down, it was to the familiar sensation of decking beneath me, and the shift and slide of a ship afloat on the ocean. A moment later the sack was wrenched from my head, and I blinked up at the startling brightness of the overhead sun, gazing archly upon me from between the looming masts of a sizeable vessel. There was a flag fluttering from one of them – a familiar red cross upon a bright, white background, the Union Flag showing blue in one corner. A naval vessel. I felt my heart quite sink into my boots. Accustomed though I have become in my life to peril and abduction, this could be no ordinary kidnap – no tale of piracy, treasure map, or desire for revenge. We had been press-ganged! I turned my head to look at Abed, and saw that that same, dread thought had come to him. Slowly, as one, we sat up.

"Gentlemen." A large, rough-looking man, every inch the sailor, was standing before us. "You are being offered employment in the king's Navy. Will you accept?" It was of course a rhetorical question. Whilst press-ganging was not allowed by the letter of the law, it was seen in its way as acceptable. The Navy must have its sailors. As such, there was next to nothing that we could do. If we refused we would not be set ashore. We would merely be subject to closer scrutiny, and less freedom to move about on the deck. I saw Abed's jaw tighten, and could well guess at his thoughts. Whilst we had both spent time as slaves, his had been the far longer and more terrible experience, and he would never agree to another form of it now – any more than he would agree to cut his own throat. Together we rose to our feet. There were far too many men about for us to fight, but that was a small matter. If we could not escape then we could at least make our confinement as much of a burden as possible. Around us, our captors closed in, clearly sensing the chance of a fight. Naval men though they might be, they were still ruffians, and likely paid for each 'recruit' in gold or silver – or, more likely, in rum.

"Going to make a fight of it, are we?" One of the men – a thin, rat-faced fellow with half of his teeth missing – grinned a lopsided grin. The sun shone from a pair of large, gold rings in his right ear, kept far cleaner than his teeth. The prospect of a fight seemed to delight him but, feeling that in this matter I had no small advantage, I immediately drew my pocket-pistol. A trick once learned upon Treasure Island, from my old foe Joshua Hallows, I have long found it sensible to keep one on my person, for one never knows when a loaded gun – or a sharpened blade – may be the difference between life or death! Or, indeed, between imprisonment and liberty. The rat-faced man frowned in displeasure, but none of the men backed down. Indeed, a moment later I felt the familiar sensation of cold metal pressing into my back. Another gun. My own had all too clearly lost its advantage. Turning my head slightly, I could see that there was yet another gun, and this one pressed into Abed's back, thus tipping the scales ever more to our enemy's advantage. With heavy heart, I lowered my pistol. I was not yet ready to take death ahead of imprisonment. You may think me a coward, but I have always been one to look towards victory, rather than defeat.

"Take them below," growled a voice from behind me. Immediately Abed and I were seized, our arms pinioned behind us, and bound by the familiar bite of harsh, strong rope. Together we were manhandled towards the hold, and first I, and then Abed, were tossed down through the hatch into the airless, tar-scented darkness below. We landed upon coils of rope, piled high in readiness for the voyage, and rolled unsteadily to our feet. A rough landing perhaps, but a good coil of rope can break a man's fall capably enough, and we were at least unhurt. In the darkness we looked at each other, very much in a whirl at this sudden and brutal change to our circumstances.

"There has to be a way out," said Abed, although the lack of escape routes must have been obvious even to a relative novice to the seafaring life. I gave my wrists an experimental wriggle. Nothing. There was no give in the ropes; no hope in the set of the knots. It has always been my opinion that it is especially bad luck to be captured by sailors. They are altogether too skilled at making knots. Unhappily I surveyed the situation before us. It was hardly encouraging. Even if there had been a porthole, and even if it were big enough to admit a grown man, it would have been impossible to get through with our hands bound. Obligingly Abed positioned himself behind me, but some half an hour's grumbling and muttering gave us no headway. Neither one of us could loose the other's bonds.

"It's not right," said Abed from out of the gloom, as we settled down near to each other on the limited comfort of the rope coils. "Kidnapping a man to sea. Don't even make sense. It can't make for a loyal crew."

"With the lash and the noose to back them, you'd be surprised," I pointed out – and even in the darkness, I could see the change that came over my good friend's face. Abed knew the lash all too well. Far too well. The thought brought back memories of the sufferings he had once taken in my name, and I resolved that I would not see him suffer again now. Tipping back my head, I considered the distance to the hatch above us. It would be no easy climb. With free hands it would be a simple enough task – provided one did not think too hard about all those sailors upon the deck; all those eyes all too ready to spy us. Still, if we waited until nightfall, it might be too late. There was no telling when the ship was due to make sail, and once at sea we would be truly lost. My mind lingered on my clasp knife, back at the Admiral Benbow, speared through Ben Gunn's great chunk of Cheshire cheese, and I sighed quietly into the dark. If ever I escaped from this, I resolved never to leave the house without it. Some men might feel safe enough to walk abroad unarmed, but my life has taught me that I can never be such a man.

"Maybe we can pretend to be sick," suggested Abed. I nodded. It was a possibility, for aboard ship, the fear of disease can be a useful ally. I was just pondering how exactly such a plot could be made to work when, far above us, the hatch slid open.

"Look out below!" yelled an unseasonably cheerful voice and, a moment later, a sack was dropped down towards us. It was followed by another and, as Abed and I scurried aside, by a third and a fourth. A few moments after, a nimble-footed little man, all bundled up in an overcoat and sailor's cap, began to climb down towards us.

"Mind the prisoners!" called a voice from above him, and the man waved a hand in answer, before leaping neatly down into the hold.

"Rotten apples," he muttered to himself, with a hint, I thought, of mischief to his voice. "As rotten as rotten can be, says I. Aye, and rottener." And pushing back the sailor's cap, which had presumably served to hide his unfamiliar face from the crew, he revealed the big, lop-sided grin of Ben Gunn!

"Ben!" Quite taken aback, for a moment I could only gape. "But how?"

"Ah, well," He winked at me, and tapped the side of his nose with a long finger. "I woke up feeling mighty thirsty, do you see, cheese being quite the thing for causing a thirst. But I seed that you weren't there, and I was wondering where you might have gotten to like, and it occurred to me that you might be heading into town. Well, says I, there's more than one tavern as can quench a man's thirst, so I sets out along the old coast road; and whats do I spy but a fine pair o' young lads being set upon, and all bagged up like gamecocks. And so I says to myself, I says—"

"Ben." Half-laughing, despite the frustration, Abed glanced warily up towards the hatch. "Tell us later, please. There can't be much time."

"Well, no. They're due to sail within the hour. It was only the worry of them rotten apples as made them wait a while. Can't have rotten apples aboard, or soon enough all you'll have is rotten apples, and that's no way to make the galley run smooth."

"What rotten apples?" I asked, when once it was possible to get a word in. He beamed at me, winking and tapping his nose again, a bright gleam a-shining in his eyes.

"Ah, well. I'm looking at them, do you see? See, I says to myself, I says, how am I to get aboard and get Jim and Abed away safe? And then it comes to me, right enough. There has to be a way of taking something off the ship undercover, says I. So I told the purser as how I were from the supplier of their stores, and said that there were a blight upon them apples as'd do for the whole hold in no time." He nodded happily, as though to underline his narrative, then from some greasy fold of the ridiculously large overcoat, he produced my clasp knife. "All ashore as is going ashore, hey Jim."

"Ben, I could hug you," I told him, and he blushed a fine shade of red. "Hurry up and get these ropes off us."

"Aye. I will at that." He sawed industriously, and soon enough we were free, and contemplating the apple barrels. It was no easy task to tip one over, and hide the apples amongst the other stores. Then Abed and I climbed inside, and from the sacks that he had brought with him, Ben produced some splendidly rotting fruit. With the sacks stuffed in above us to create a false top to the barrel, he emptied the stinking, fermenting lot in, before hollering up to the sailors on deck for some help. There was a good deal of complaining from the men who had to shift the barrel, for it must have weighed more than any apple barrel ever did before, but soon enough we were deposited upon solid and unmoving dry land. There we stayed, cramped almost beyond endurance, and with little in the way of air, until finally the ship made sail. Only then did Ben burrow down through the apples to liberate us, covering us all three in the rotting mess in the process. We wriggled out – sweaty, filthy, and covered in fermenting apple juice – but free. Abed drew a deep and very happy breath.

"Thank you, Ben," he said, with real feeling. "You've earned a bottle of port and a sight more for that."

"Why, and there's a tavern just over yonder," said Ben in answer, with yet another wink. Abed laughed.

"I think we need a wash first," he said, and clapped me on the back, knocking loose several large chunks of festering apple from the top of my head. I nodded. I could already hear the massing hum of a flotilla of hungry wasps. Ben, for whom a smattering of mashed and rotted fruit was no obstacle to social intercourse, looked fit to complain, but I mollified him with assurances that there would be cheese to go with the port, and maybe a brandy or two into the bargain. He settled down happily then at the water's edge, whilst Abed and I leapt off the docks, and cavorted and splashed each other merrily, like a pair of boys let out early from the schoolroom. It was just the bathing we had intended when we had left the Admiral Benbow, but made all the more joyous and refreshing for our escape. I caught Abed's eye as we hauled ourselves back up onto the dock, and he laughed that familiar, head-thrown-back laugh, teeth white in the bright of the sunshine.

"Sometimes I think I was safer back in Jamaica," he told me with a wink, and I nodded ruefully. Danger, it seems, will ever be my travelling companion. Still, a man cannot escape his nature – and there is no sense in dwelling over it. Collecting Ben, we headed off towards the nearest tavern, and as we did so, I slung an arm across the shoulders of each of my companions. We were an odd ensemble, perhaps, but a merry one – and whilst I was quite sure that our adventures were not over, they were surely at least done for today. Disaster had been averted, and there was naught more perilous than drinking to be done – and the celebrating of a most excellent friendship.



The End